History Week 2 with William J.R. Curtis

It's not everyday that you get to be in the company of a world renowned architecture historian and critic and yet, for the second time, we got to spend an entire week with one, the incredible William J.R. Curtis. This second week provided us another in depth look at modern architecture and some of its most notable precedents. Through this week, we also got a glimpse of the future of architecture and a chance to consider our own roles in it. This week's adventures brought us from our humble residences in Versailles, through the never, ever, fully discovered Paris, the never, ever, ending French country side, and enough religious centers to send our spirits beyond the very stars that our eyes were fortunate enough to gaze upon in the night skies of France. Our bodies in need of some intense stretching after a LONG bus ride and our minds Corbu-ed out, it's now time for the final push in design.

"Safe Box" Week with the French Students

French and American students working together for the "Safe Box" project 

Last week was by far the most fun week of school so far.  After returning from a week-long travel break, we skipped our usual Design and Structures classes in order to have a 5-day intense design charrette with the second-year French students.  Each American was paired with 3 or 4 French students, so finally, after all this time, students of both cultures were working together in the same room and got to know each other very quickly.

The assignment was simple and straightforward: choose a location, pick a disaster, and design a low-budget emergency housing unit (a "Safe Box") for the families who lost their homes.  However, with the added language barrier and different design backgrounds, a challenging and exhausting week ensued.  We were at school all day, every day -- hearing lectures, sketching our ideas, and consulting with our professors and teaching assistants.

The three teachers for the week were guests from all over the world, and by the end of the 5 days, we loved them all.  There was Kevin Hinders from U of I, who gave a lecture on some of his sustainable work throughout the world; Jean-Christophe Grosso, a French architect who talked about his disaster relief work in Benin; and Yashar Hanstad, an Iranian-Norweigan architect from Tyin Tegnestue studios, who also did low-cost housing.  It was great to hear Professor Hinders' real American accent, something we realized we hadn't heard in months...  We also learned that Jean-Christophe used to work for Santiago Calatrava, which was cool...  And everyone loved Yashar after hearing about his love for Radiohead and how his last project beat Zaha Hadid in a competition.

The 3 design teachers and the program coordinators

Yashar giving his comments

The final presentations on Friday were long, but they showed just how diverse our disaster solutions ended up being.  They were rather funny, too: while the French students had to present their parts in English, the Americans had to present in French.  Fortunately, no mocking occurred, and the day ended with a pleasant reception.  No one really wanted the project to end, because it had been such a success, both academically and socially.  Overall, it was a great week that I'm sure none of us will ever forget.

CORBU WEEK with William J. R. Curtis!

 --Beth Nowicke

It’s hard to believe that we’re closing in on the end of the first month of the spring semester already.  It’s definitely been a bit of a change from the way things worked last semester.  For design, the class has been split into three groups and we are all working on different projects depending on our professor.  We’re still working on improving our French and this week we will be testing our engineering smarts by participating in ENSAV’s portico project assignment (stay tuned for more on that).

One of the biggest changes this semester has been our history class.  Instead of a class we attend on a regular schedule, we spend two whole weeks with the renowned architectural historian, William J.R. Curtis.  William is an expert on modern architecture.  He lives in southern France and makes the trek to Paris for the week to teach us.  He has taught all over the world and written many books, including Modern Architecture Since 1900 (words of wisdom to future SAPVers, we suggest looking into this book before asking William to spell anything). Above all, he is very passionate about architecture and I think we all enjoyed our week together.

The subjects of our first week of study included Le Corbusier, Frank Lloyd Wright, Alvar Aalto, Mies van der Rohe and a few other modern influences. William gave lectures on these topics and accompanied us on site visits in Paris and the surrounding area.  All but two of our site visits were works of Le Corbusier, creating a sort of Corbu-mania, resulting in the fond renaming of the history intensive week to “Corbu Week.”

First on the list of site visits was Villa Savoye in Poissy…

...as you can see, we sort of took over the place for our sketching assignment.

Our next site visit was to Maison la Roche, tucked away on a Paris side street.

Some of the students got a private tour of the Maison de Verre, a modern house in Paris that inspired a lot of Le Corbusier's work.

One day was spent at Cité Internationale Universitaire in Paris. It’s the closest thing to the Urbana-Champaign campus most of us have seen since we’ve been here. Le Corbusier designed two residential buildings here, the Pavillon Suisse (Swiss Pavilion)…

…and the Maison du Brésil (Brazil House).

The only non-Corbu building we saw all week was Alvar Aalto’s Maison Louis Carrée.  I think it’s safe to say it was a favorite for many of us.

Our last site visit of the week as to the apartment building in Paris that Le Corbusier designed and lived in. The apartment where he lived and worked is on the top floor of the building and has some really amazing views of the city.

It was a long week jam packed with Corbu and modern architecture but I think we’re all looking forward to our next encounter with William J.R. Curtis in March. We will be closing out the course with a fieldtrip to Le Corbusier’s Ronchamp Chapel in eastern France. I don’t know if we’re more excited to see more architecture or hang out with William for another week!

End of the First Semester

Our first semester in Versailles finally came to a close in mid-December, and only now, finally having caught up on sleep, do I have the energy to write about it.  Our classes were tough, but the prospect of befriending the French students and traveling on the weekends made the semester a good one overall.

Design class dominated our lives for the last month of school, our assignment being to create a multifunctional theater on a site near the Bastille in Paris.  Before our fall travel break, it had been difficult to really focus whole-heartedly on the design of a building -- all of Europe lay before us, after all, and we were eager to explore it -- but once we returned, it was time to crack down.  Working in pairs, and divided amongst three different studio professors, 24 different theaters were finally designed.  We presented our final boards on the last day of class to all of the SAPV professors as well as some guests.  I hope to start a new page for student artwork on this blog soon, so that everyone back home will be able to see our progress.

Final reviews

Our other classes also ended well.  In history, we made a few more trips to Paris (for example, Henri IV's Place des Vosges and the magnificent Louvre museum) before the final exam.  Structures class featured a fun exercise in which we were grouped into teams and competed to build the tallest possible structure out of spaghetti, clay, and string.  Our "independent study" was graded based on our performance in French class and the quality of our sketching assignments (most of which were done during the week-long travel break).

Structures class

Outside of academics, life continued to get more and more interesting throughout the semester.  Despite various problems with housing and some unfortunate weather (French people don't know how to shovel snow!), we managed to have a lot of fun and hang out with the French students more often.  We threw them a party in one of the big ateliers (studios) in early December, which they absolutely loved.  And right before winter break began, some of us attended their huge Christmas party (along with a delicious dinner beforehand), which lasted all night long.  But we still tried to keep up with our American customs, so our directors organized a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner at a local restaurant for us.  The food wasn't what we were used to, but it was delicious nevertheless.  Almost all of the students went to see Harry Potter that afternoon, so it was a long, fun day of traditions.

Thanksgiving dinner

French Christmas party

A few students went back home for winter break, some students' families came here to visit, and some continued to travel throughout Europe.  Soon, we'll be starting up a new page on this blog for everyone's travel adventures (there are a ton of good stories!).  Hopefully everyone has caught up on their sleep by now, because come Tuesday, it's time for us to get into school mode once again.

Studio Culture EN FRANCE

This week marked the biggest change yet in our Versailles experience so far: we finally started meeting French students!  School had been silent for weeks, but suddenly -- yes, as late as October -- they all returned to the ENSA-V in full force.  Finally, the student-run café was up and running with well-dressed French kids swarming around it all throughout the day.  For a while, the forty-eight of us awkwardly tried to: (a) speak to the French kids without sounding like idiots, and (b) avoid coming off as obnoxious Americans.

But things got much better this week when two of the French studios had their first big meetings.  When I say "meetings", I don't mean the usual "studio culture" talk that we would usually hear during the first days of studio in Champaign-Urbana.  These French introductory meetings were advertised on posters as "pots" (pronounced poe)... which is apparently a sneaky way of saying insane party.

Yes, it's official: no studio back at home will ever be ANYTHING like the studios here in Versailles.  They couldn't be more different: teachers and administrative employees are actually not allowed to enter the studio spaces because they are entirely student-run.  Since the studios serve as personal work spaces and not classrooms, they seem to have evolved into idealized "living spaces for architects"... which includes crazy artwork all over the walls, giant sound systems for blasting music, upper levels from which the older students can yell down at the young ones to do work for them, and the freedom to drink and smoke whenever and wherever!

The ENSA-V has three studios, or ateliers, which are called 13, 14, and 19 for some reason.  Atelier 19 is a bit smaller and has a reputation for housing the more quiet, studious students, whereas 13 and 14 are very large and rather eclectic.  The bigger ones had the meetings this week, which is where several of the Americans got to befriend the French kids over free drinks and loud music.  Over the next few weeks, we might have to struggle to find spots amongst the French students in the studios, but everyone there was definitely very friendly and some even invited us to sit by them.  Phone numbers have been exchanged, we're learning how to do the French cheek-kissing tradition, and some of us have hung out with the French kids outside of school -- so all is well in Versailles!

-Kim

Weekend Field Trip to Metz, Nancy, and Reims

One of the best aspects of the architecture program in Versailles is that fact that we're so close to so many famous architectural landmarks in Europe.  We got to take advantage of this for the first time when we had our first official field trip.  From September 23rd to the 25th, all 48 students plus 4 professors piled into a coach bus and headed to Eastern France for the weekend.

Centre Pompidou Metz

Our first stop was Metz, an ancient French town featuring the brand-new Centre Pompidou Metz.  We took a tour inside, so along the way, we got to see lots of interesting modern art and some perfectly-crafted architectural models.  After debating whether or not we liked the building's style, we headed over to a very different architectural landmark: Saint Pierre-aux-Nonnains, a Gallo-Roman church from the 4th century AD.  We practiced our sketching for a while there before driving to one of Metz's hostels.

Inside St. Pierre-aux-Nonnains

Yes, all of the students plus all of our teachers ate dinner and slept at the hostel together.  The next day, after bonding over an insubstantial breakfast, everyone packed back onto the bus for the drive to Nancy.  Even though it was a rainy day, Nancy turned out to be even more beautiful than Metz (in my opinion, at least!) since it contained lots of pretty architecture.  We saw several examples of Art Nouveau architecture scattered throughout the town and also at the Musée de l'École de Nancy.  We spent lots of time sketching there, of course, and also proceeded to sketch inside the nearby Musée des Beaux-Arts Nancy.  Later in the afternoon, we sketched the Place Stanislas and finally drove back to Metz for the night, our hands and our feet exhausted.

An interesting perspective painting at the Musée des Beaux Arts

We spent another night discovering Metz's night life and woke up the next morning to explore a medieval fortress perched atop one of the town's hills.  We glanced inside St. Étienne de Metz, one of the tallest cathedrals in the world, until finally getting back on the coach bus for the last leg of our trip.  We gladly arrived in Reims and got dropped off right in front of the glorious Reims Cathedral.  Most of the students are big fans of Gothic architecture, so it was quite exciting to see this architectural gem up-close.  Before heading home, we were able to explore the town of Reims a little bit and buy souvenirs.  Almost everyone opted to buy a bottle of bubbly -- this was Champagne country, after all!  We wound our way back to Versailles after a few hours on the bus, and everyone crashed after a very tiring but very fun weekend.

The facade of Notre Dame de Reims

-Kim

Concluding Orientation

As September comes to an end, it's hard to believe that we've been here in France for almost a month.  We've all finally settled into our apartments, learned our way around Versailles, and started thinking about schoolwork again.  So many things have happened -- sketching projects, field trips, weekend excursions -- so it feels like we've been here in France much longer than four weeks.  Now that we've recovered from our long orientation program, it's time to let everyone back at home know what we've been up to!

The first two weeks were filled with introductory courses and orientation lectures.  We met the awesome program director, Alejandro, and his wife Magali, the program administrator.  By now, we all consider them our pseudo-parents: they have an answer for everything and they're always looking out for us!  They spent a lot of time giving us information about life in Versailles and how to survive in France.  We learned about everything from banking and cell phones to doing laundry and cooking... it was overwhelming, but very useful!  During our introductory school courses, we met the rest of the staff: Jean-Brice and Eugenia (the two other studio professors, along with Alex), Tricia (history), and Jeff (structures).  We also got split into three different levels for a short-term French class to help us adjust.  At the end of the week, we had our first sketching session, the first of many to come throughout the rest of the year.

The most interesting -- and certainly challenging -- aspect of those first few weeks was adjusting to the French culture.  We couldn't help but be shocked and embarrassed from time to time... one quickly realizes just how American we look amongst all the Europeans.  We realized that several stereotypes are too true: compared to French people, we are loud, obnoxious, and don't dress well!  It was fun meeting friendly French people from time to time, but more often than not, we made fools of ourselves with our poor French language skills.  Fortunately, by now we're getting better -- I might even venture to say that they believe we're actually French sometimes!

It was exciting to learn about French customs and habits, too.  People truly do dress like supermodels; the food is amazingly delicious; and (of course) the beautiful architecture can't be beat.  Then again, some less exciting stereotypes are also true: everyone smokes like a chimney, no one smiles on the street, and things aren't very convenient or organized.  But, as Magali tells us, we have to learn to adapt to the "French way" -- just go with the flow, and things will work themselves out!

Back on the first day, when we arrived in Versailles via coach bus, we were all immediately awestruck by the enormity and beauty of the Château de Versailles.  After all, it's the heart of the city -- in fact, the only reason that the city even exists.  It looms over Versailles like a giant symbol of royal power, its golden facade shining brightly in the sunlight every day.  It seemed ridiculous to not visit it at the first opportunity, especially since our school is part of the grounds.  So when we finally had some free time, several of us ventured inside (for free with our student cards).  What we found inside was mind-blowing, almost ridiculous -- there's so much to see that even now, three weeks later, I still have more areas to explore.  We'll send more updates about the actual Château once we've explored the grounds a bit more thoroughly.

Everyone was also very excited to go explore Paris for the first time.  Having been itching to go there for several days, I finally led about half of the group all over the city for several hours.  I think that was when we truly realized how lucky we are to be here.  Paris is teeming with indescribable beauties in every neighborhood... it is truly breathtaking.  There's just too much to tell about the wonders of the City of Lights in one post -- so more on that later!

-Kim